5/7/30 [for 5 August 1930) Ecole Normale Rue d'Ulm45
Paris Se
Dear Monsieur Soupault
Here at last.
Paris Se
Dear Monsieur Soupault
Here at last.
Samuel Beckett
9 below); Charpentier's opera Louise was performed on 10 and 22 July 1930; Alan Duncan had applied for a position in Belfast and by 8 August 1930 was among four final candidates u.
c.
Nolan, Director, Ulster Museum, 4 August 1993).
That SB and Peron are "galloping through A. L. P. " suggests that this letter precedes that to Soupault dated 5 July 1930 [for 5 August 1930] when two pages of translation were sent to Soupault.
1 McGreevyhadinvitedSBtojoinhimlaterinthesummerwhenhetraveledtosee Richard Aldington at Aiguebelle near Le Lavandou on the Cote d'Azur, France.
Henri Laugier• (1888-1973) was Professor of Physiology at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (1929-1936) and a physician. A prescription was necessary to purchase caffeine.
2 SBstayedonthroughthesummerattheEcoleNormaleSuperieuretoworkonhis study of Proust and the translation of"Anna Livia Plurabelle" with Peron.
3 Thecircumstanceisnotknown.
4 Henry Morris Sinclair (known as Harry, 1882-71938) was the twin brother of William Sinclair and the proprietor of Harris and Sinclair, Antique Plate, Jewellery and Works ofArt, 47 Nassau Street, Dublin.
The Hotel Bristol, 112 Rue du Faubourg St. -Honore, Paris 8. The opera Louise by Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956) was performed at the Opera Comique on 10 July and 22 July; Louise has four, not five acts, but Act II has two parts.
5 "Racine pleases me more than any other dramatist," wrote Rudmose-Brown in his memoirs: "I have never . . . really cared for what ought to be, or what might be. Mine has been the scientific (or artistic) turn of mind, interested in what is, and why it is . . . I have never been deceived by the cant and slogans and shibboleths ofpoliticians and moralists: but I have never been indignant at the folly and corruption ofthe world"
33
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930), McGreery
(A. J. Leventhal, ed. ,"Extracts from the Unpublished Memoirs of the Late T. B. Rudrnose Brown," Dublin Magazine 31. 1 Uanuary-March 1956\ 32).
6 James Ralph Seabrooke Pinker (fl. 1900-1950), of Messrs James B. Pinker and Sons, London, literary agents for Richard Aldington and Thomas McGreevy.
7 Duncan applied for the position of Assistant in the Ulster Art Gallery and Museum in Belfast in June 1930; by 8 August 1930, of the thirty-six applicants who had been considered, four, including an Irishman living in Paris, were selected for interviews (Nolan, 4 August 1993).
The Irish portrait painter Derrnod O'Brien (1865-1945) was President of the Royal Hibernian Academy (1910-1945) and President of the United Arts Club, Dublin.
8 Jean Beaufi:et. "Deniche" (digs out).
9 When Robert I. Brown arrived in Paris in July 1930, he oversaw delivery of his books to the Ecole Norrnale Superieure. but he did not reside at the ENS until October. His books did not include volumes of Scottish writers Robert Burns (1759-1796), Walter Scott (1771-1832), or Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) (Robert I. Brown, 5 August 1994).
"Und so weiter" (and so forth).
10 McGreevy,whowasnowinIreland,plannedtospendlateAugustandthefirst weeks of September in Aiguebelle.
11 SBmayhavesentWhoroscopetoJoyceinLlandudno,Wales,ortohishomeinParis, 2 Square Robiac. Whoroscope was announced as forthcoming on 30 June 1930 and was probably published between 1 and 8 July 1930 ("Our London Letter," The Irish Independent: 8; SB to McGreevy Thursday [? 17 July 1930], n. 5; Cunard, These Were the Hours, 210).
12 InTheApesofGodbyWyndhamLewis,thecharacterHoraceZagreusspeaksabout satire withJulius Ratner, saying:"To be a true satirist Ratner you must remain upon the surface of existence . . . You must never go underneath it" ([London: Arthur Press, 1930; rpt. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1981\ 451).
Although"gulls"arementionedinTheApesofGod,itisprobablethatSBisresponding to McGreevy's comment on the image of"gulls" in Nancy Cunard's poem, Parallax, a passage that SB had praised in his previous letter to McGreevy [? 17 July 1930].
13 ThebirthdayofSB'sbrotherFrankEdwardBeckett•(1902-1954)was26July. La Beaute sur la terre (1927; Beauty on Earth) was written by Swiss-born novelist Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (1878-1947). The"shell-shocked triangle" probably refers to the following novels ofWorldWar I: Henri Barbusse (1874-1935), Le Feu,joumal d'une escouade (1916; Under Fire); Georges Duhamel (ne Denis Thevenin, 1884-1966), La Vie des martyrs (1917; The New Book of Martyrs); Roland Dorgeles (ne Roland Lecavele, 1885-1973), Les Croix de bois (1919; Wooden Crosses); the first two were awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1917 and 1918 respectively.
14 GermanphilosopherArthurSchopenhauer(1788-1869)discusseshappinessas "mere abolition of a desire and extinction of a pain" in his essay"On the Suffering of the World"; he adds that, if one's fellow man is seen as a"fellow sufferer," it"reminds us of what are the most necessary of all things; tolerance, patience, forbearance and
34
{before 5 August 1930}, McGreevy
charity, which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes" (Essays and Aphorisms,ed. andtr. R. J. HollingdaleL! ondon:Penguin,1970]42,50).
Jean Beaufret and Alfred Peron.
Italian poet GiacomoLeopardi (1798-1837); for SB's student notes onLeopardi: TCD,
MS 10971/9. For further discussion ofLeopardi's influence on SB, see C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski, The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader's Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought (New York: Grove Press, 2004) 316-317.
SB refers to Italian poet and Professor in Classics at the University of Bologna (1860-1904) Giosue Carducci (1835-1907); for SB's student reading notes: TCD, MS 10965 and MS 10965a.
Maurice Barres (1863-1923), French novelist, journalist, politician, fervent and anti-semitic Nationalist, was author of two trilogies of novels, Le Culte du moi (1888-1891; The Cult ofEgo) and Le Roman de l'energie nationale (1897-1902; The Novel of NationalEnergy).
15 "Bon travail & bon sommeil" (work well & sleep well); "tante belle cose" (It. , all good wishes).
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
[before 5 August 1930]
Ecole Normale [Paris]
Dear Tom
I cannot find the phrase you want, but may yet. I thought
I knew where it was, but was wrong as usual. Have you no idea. I
1
I have not put pen to paper on Proust. But I will, & then I hope it will go quickly. I am reading him all again before starting & it tires me a lot. I am supposed to be going on with the Joyce too, alone now that Alfy has gone, God help & save me. I can't do the bloody thing. It's betrayal as well as everything else.
35
thoughtitwasamongstthenegligent,butitwasnot. Whatpoem do you mean? Every second poem of Laforgue is about jeunes ti. Hes & couvents. I will send you my volume of Laforgue. I will look in Corbiere and send it along. 2 Anything I can do I am only too glad to do. But you may be sure I will do it all wrong & badly.
{before 5 August 1930/, McGreevy [. . . ]
I heard from Lucia. I never think of her now. I think they have left Llandudno for Oxford. 3 I saw Bronowski. A talkative
4
Reavey bought a new ribbon for my typewriter & that works very
well now. When are you coming back? Hurry up in the name of
God. Sorry to hear about the Bibesco. Surely he'll pay all the
same? 5 I had a card from Angelo from Piedmont, and was very
glad. I saw your doctor & he gave me some bloody stuffthat isn't
6
them. I am looking forward to pulling the balls off the critical &
poetical Proustian cock. He adored Ruskin & the Comtesse de
Noailles and thought Amie! was a forerunner! I am going to
write a poem about him too, with Charlus's lavender trousers
7
information I can. Have you heard from Aldington? 8 You sent on
an offer of a complimentary photographical seance from one
Miss Vaughan! It'd be better for a man to be dead! When you
come we will drink 2 bottles of Chambertin & half a bottle of
9
Schopenhauer says defunctus is a beautiful word - as long as one does not suicide. 10 He might be right.
Love Sam
ALS; I leaf. 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/4. Dating: Jacob Bronowski was editing the English and Irish sections of The European Caravan for Samuel Putnam; Bronowski was in Paris 31 July to 3 August 1930, and again, overnight, on 16 August as he returned to London (Bronowski to Putnam, 28 July 1930; Bronowski to Putnam, 14 August 1930 [NjP, New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COl 11/1/23]). SB may have met Bronowski
36
shit. I think I like Putnam & Reavey. But possibly not much.
bad,butI'dratherhavecaffeine. Theyneverdowhatyouask
inaGothicpissotiere. Iwillwriteagainto-morrowandgiveall
cochonfine&findacinecochon. Youareunwisetoleaveme your 200. You know I will spend it. I brought my shoes to a shop and they refused to mend them, but I can still wear them on very dry days. Another pair too I had they refused to mend.
[before 5 August 1930), McGreevy
at either of these times, but early August 1930 is more likely. The Joyces were in Llandudno during late June and much ofJuly; Joyce wrote to Valery Larbaud from England on 28 July 1930 and to Stanislaus Joyce from Oxford on 3 August 1930 Uoyce, Letters ofJames Joyce, III, 512, 201). SB's surmise that the Joyces are back in Oxford would confirm a date toward the end ofJuly or early August.
1 The Princes who have been negligent of salvation are found in Canto VII of Dante's Purgatory. McGreevy does not cite Dante in his Thomas Stearns Eliot: A Study, The Dolphin Books (London: Chatto and Windus, 1931); he does quote from Dante in his poem "Fragments" (1931) (Thomas MacGreevy, Collected Poems ofThomas MacGreevy: An Annotated Edition, ed. Susan Schreibman [Dublin: Anna Livia Press; Washington DC: The Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1991] 38, 140-142).
2 Several poems by French poet Jules Laforgue (1860-1887) are quoted in McGreevy's Thomas Stearns Eliot, 30-33: "Figurez-vous un peu" (Derniers vers), "Petition," "Petite priere sans pretentions," and "Le bon apotre" (a section that is also part of"Le Condie Feerique"). McGreevy seeks a poem with allusion to a convent; the untitled twelfth poem ofthe Derniers vers takes as its headnote (in English) a portion of Hamlet's speech to Ophelia, beginning: "Get thee to a nunn'ry" (Shakespeare, Hamlet, in The Riverside Shakespeare: The Complete Works, General and Textual ed. G. Blakemore Evans, assisted by J. J. M. Tobin, 2nd edn. [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997] III. i. 120-129; all subsequent Shakespeare citations are from this text). McGreevy discusses the influence on Eliot of French poet Tristan Corbiere (ne Edouard-Joachim Corbiere, 1845-1875), quoting from Corbiere's poem "Vesuves et Cie," published in Les Amours jaunes (1873) (McGreevy, Thomas Stearns Eliot, 25-26).
3 TheJoycefamilylefttheGrandHotel,Llandudno,fortheRandolphHotel,Oxford, about 1 August 1930 (Danis Rose, The Textual Diaries of]amesJoyce [Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1995] 188).
4 Polish-born mathematician and scientist Jacob Bronowski· (1908-1974) was an Editor ofthe Cambridge University undergraduate journal Experiment (1928-1931), begun by William Empson (1906-1984), William Hare (ne William Francis Hare, Lord Ennismore; from 1931, the 5th Earl ofListowel; 1906-1997), and Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950); in 1929 Hugh Sykes [Davies] (1909-1984) replaced Empson as Editor. George Reavey• (1907-1976), also at Cambridge, published in the journal.
With George Reavey, Maida Castelhun Darnton (1872-1940), and Samuel Putnam, Bronowski was compiling and editing The European Caravan.
5 PrinceAntoineBibesco(1878-1951)wastheRomanianenvoyinLondon,alife long friend ofMarcel Proust, and a dramatist. It is not known what McGreevy had begun to translate for Bibesco, but possibly it was his play Laquelle . . . ? (1930). Although unacknowledged as such, McGreevy was translator ofLe Destin de Lord Thomson of Cardington (Lord Thomson of Cardington, a Memoir and Some Letters [London: Jonathan Cape, 19321) by Princesse Marthe Lucie Bibesco (nee Lahovary, also pseud. Lucile Decaux, 1886-1973), Romanian-born novelist, biographer, and travel writer, a cousin by marriage to Antoine Bibesco.
6 McGreevy'sdoctorwasHenriLaugier.
7 ProustspentseveralyearstranslatingandannotatingtheworksoftheEnglishart
critic and writer John Ruskin (1819-1900): Sesame and Lilies (1865-1869) as Sesame et les
37
{before 5 August 1930], McGreevy
lys (1906) and The Bible of Amiens (1885) as La Bible d'Amiens (1904). Poet and woman of letters, Anna de Brancovan, Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles (1876-1933). Journal /ntime (1883-1884) by Henri-Frederic Amie! (1821-1881), Swiss poet and philosopher, Professor of Aesthetics and Moral Philosophy at the University of Geneva.
In Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu the Baron de Charlus frequents pissotieres (street urinals) for the purpose of soliciting.
8 RichardAldington.
9 ReferencetoacircularfromaphotographerMissKayVaughan(n. d. ),44ADover Street, London Wl.
"Cochon fine" (house brandy); "cine cochon" (blue film).
10 Inhis"DoctrineofSufferingoftheWorld,"Schopenhauerwrites:"Lifeisatask to be worked off; in this sense defunctus is a fine expression" (Studies in Pessimism in Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, tr. E. F. J. Payne. II ! Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974] 300). SB uses "defunctus" as the final word in Proust, The Dolphin Books (! London: Chatto and Windus, 1931] 72; pagination is identical in Proust [New York: Grove Press, 19571).
PHILIPPE SOUPAULT PARIS
5/7/30 [for 5 August 1930]
Ecole Normale Rue d'tnm45 Paris Se
Cher Monsieur Soupault
Voici enfin. Deux copies, dans le cas que Bifur en voudrait
1
une.
Mais je ne voudrais pas publier cela, pas meme un frag
ment, sans l'au[t]orisation de Monsieur Joyce lui-meme, qui
pourrait tres bien trouver cela vraiment trap mal fait et trap
2
Cordialement
s/ Samuel Beckett
TLS; 1 leaf, 1 side; enclosure: TMS with AN; 2 leaves, 2 sides of preliminary translation into French ofJoyce's "Anna Livia Plurabelle"; CtY, James Joyce collection, GEN MSS 112, Series II, 5/102; photocopy OkTIJ, Ellmann collection.
38
eloignedel'original. Plusj'ypenseplusjetrouvetoutcelabien pauvre. Enfin, tel quel, je vous l'envoie.
5 July 1930 {for 5 August 1930}, Soupault
The typescript enclosure ends: "Patain de foudre! En voila du pourprauperisme! " It is possible: (1) that more pages were originally enclosed; (2) that the translation was continued by SB, with or without Peron (an argument that might be made for main taining the date as 5 July 1930); or (3) that the translation was completed by others to whom it was not attributed. Proof pages from Bifur, date stamped 16 October 1930, incorporate the few AN corrections on the original typescript; the proof pages are themselves heavily corrected (GEN MSS 112, Series II, 5/103; http:/fbeinecke/libraiy. yale. edu/dl_crosscollex/default. htm, and Folder 641, Broadside case). This proof indi cates that the translation was done by "M. Perron and S. Beckett," but this is changed to read "AR. Peron. "
A further, though unsigned, typescript reflects the changes made on the Bifur proof (GEN MSS 112, Series 11/5/104; this is ten pages long. although paginated to 9 because two pages are marked "7").
Dating: the editors have dated this letter as 5 August 1930, based on the contextual sequence of undated letters from[? 17 July 1930] to[7 August 1930].
5/7/30 [for 5 August 1930) Ecole Normale Rue d'Ulm45
Paris Se
Dear Monsieur Soupault
Here at last. Two copies, in case Bifur wanted one. But I
would not wish to publish this, not even a fragment, without permission from Mr Joyce himself, who might very well find it
2
1 SB and Alfred Peron prepared the preliminaiy French translation of the "Anna Livia Plurabelle" section of Joyce's Work in Progress for publication in Bifer(TM; 2 Leaves, 2 sides; CtY, James Joyce collection, GEN MSS 112, Series II, 5/102); photocopy, OkTIJ, Ellmann collection).
2 Adrienne Monnier (1892-1955), proprietor of La Maison des Amis des Livres, the Paris bookshop, wrote: "This translation . . . went to the stage of being set in type . . . but it did not go to the stage of being approved for printing, for while Joyce was veiy satisfied with the result when he was consulted, he got it into his head to team seven persons together under his guidance . . . That was to have the
39
1
allreallytoobadlydoneandtoofarfromtheoriginal. Themore I think of it, the more I find it all very poor stuff. Anyhow, such as it is, I send it to you.
Best wishes
Samuel Beckett
5 July 1930 [for 5 August 1930}, Soupault
pleasure of saying my 'Septuagint"' (The Very Rich Hours ofAdrienne Monnier ! New York: Scribner-. 1976] 167).
Revision began with regular weekly sessions in November 1930 and continued into the spring, with Soupault as the "driving force behind the translation" (Paul Leopoldovitch Leon [1893-1942] toRogerVitrac [1899-1953], 30December 1932 inJamesJoyce and Paul Leon, TheJamesJoyce - Paul Leon Papers in The National Library ofIreland: A Catalogue, compiled by Catherine Fahy ! Dublin: National Library of Ireland, 1992] 120).
Philippe Soupault described the process in "A Propos de la traduction d'Anna Livia [forLivie] Plurabelle" (La Nouvelle Revue Franr;aise, 36. 212 ll May 1931] 633-636); although written as "Livia" in the title ofthis essay, throughout the essay, and as the heading for the translation itself, the title is given as "Anna Livie Plurabelle. "The translation is attributed to SamuelBeckett, Alfred Perron (for Peron), IvanGoll,Eugene (forEugene)
Jolas, Paul L. Leon, Adrienne Monnier, and Philippe Soupault, in collaboration with the author (La Nouvelle Revue Fral'l{aise, 36. 212 ll May 1931] 637-646). For more detail about the translation process: "Traduttore . . . Traditore? " in Maria Jolas, ed. , A James Joyce Yearbook (Paris: Transition Press, 1949) 171-178; this reprints Soupault's memoir from his Souvenirs deJamesJoyce (Algiers:Editions Fontaine, 1943), andEugeneJolas's account of the translation process from the manuscript of his then unpublished autobiogra phy, Man from Babel, ed. Andreas Kramer and Rainer Rumod, Henry McBride Series in Modernism and Modernity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
THOMAS McGREEVY T ARBERT, CO. KERRY
7/7/30 [for 7 August 1930]
E. N. S. [Paris]
DearTom
Here is the Corbiere and the baronial nausea. You see I
exaggerated as usual. Vinegar not cowpiss. I hope you will not be too disappointed. Alas I cannot find the words of Dante, and I have been all through it. I am sony but it is hopeless when I don't know where to look. I am sending you my copy of Laforgue. 1
The Proust is crawling along though I have not started to write anything. 17000 words is the hell of a lot, and I can't see myself doing so much. 2 Alfy is gone. I am going to write to him now that I cannot go on with the translation alone. I can't do it. And then to that bastard Soupault that I will sign no contract.
40
7 July 1930 [for 7 August 1930}, McGreevy
I sent him two copies of what we had already done, one for Joyce
and one for Bifur if Joyce is not too disgusted by the chasm of
feeling and technique between his hieroglyphics and our bastard
French. 3 But I will not go on alone. It can't be done, and I am tired
enough and have enough to do without that. I was reading
d'Annunzio on Giorgione again and I think it is all balls and
mean nasty balls. I was thinking of Keats and Giorg[i]one's two
young men - the Concert and the Tempest - for a discussion of
Proust's floral obsessions. D'A. seems to think that they are
merely pausing between fucks. Horrible. He has a dirty juicy
squelchy mind, bleeding and bursting, like his celebrated pome
granates. 4 My head was a torrent of ideas and phrases last night or
rather this morning in bed, but it did me no good as I could
neither go to sleep nor get up and put them down. My shoe
exploded this afternoon in the Boul Mich so I had to go in and
buy a pair. I left them in the shop and felt relieved when I got
away without them. Saw A. and B. last night. Napoleon Danton
and Louis quatorze[']s red heels! 5 Dining with Nancy tomorrow.
6
TLS; I leaf, 2 sides; TCD, MS 10402/7. Dating: Nancy Cunard was in Paris through the middle ofAugust; she wrote to Louise Morgan on 13 August 1930: "These are the last days here thank God. Then off [ . . . ] into the car and so down Pyreneenwards [ . . . [ If Beckett goes to London on his way to Dublin I'll make so bold as to send him you. He's a grand person" (CtY, Beinecke, GEN MSS 80, series v, 36/361).
1 SB sent his copy of Corbiere's Les Amours jaunes and of the poems of Laforgue. Although it is not known which edition ofLaforgue he sent to McGreevy, or whether McGreevy returned the book, according to James KnowIson SB owned the 1903 edition ofLaforgue's Poesies (Paris: Mercure de France) at the time ofhis death.
2 SB'sessayturnedouttobeaboutthesamelengthasotherbooksintheChattoand Windus Dolphin Books series.
3 NeitherSB'slettertoPeron,norafurtherlettertoSoupaulthasbeenfound.
41
She says Little Red Riddensnood is selling, but I don't believe her. God bless, hurry up back.
sf Sam
7 July 1930 [for 7 August 1930), McGreevy
4 llfuoco (1900) by the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863-1938) includes a discussion ofthe three figures in The Concert (Palazzo Pitti, Florence), then attributed to Italian painter Giorgione (ne Zorzi da Castelfranco, also known as Zorzon, c. 1477-1510). but now attributed to Titian (ne Tiziano Vecellio, c. 1485-1576). D'Annunzio's character Stelio Effrena lectures on the painting, describing the gaze exchanged between the musician at the harpsichord and the older man on the right, who gently touches his shoulder; the other figure in the painting, a man on the left in a plumed hat, is described by D'Annunzio as an apparently detached onlooker. Stelio says that "Giorgione seems to have created [him] under the influence ofa ray reflected from the stupendous Hellenic myth whence the ideal form ofHermaphrodite arose" (Il
fuoco: I romanzi del Melagrano in Prose di romanzi, II, ed. Ezio Raimondi, Annamaria Andreoli, and Niva Lorenzini [Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. 1989] 247; The Flame of Life: The Romances of the Pomegranate, tr. Kassandra Vivaria (Boston: L. C. Page and Company, 1900] 62-63). In Proust, SB quotes a passage from llfuoco that captures the sensuous nature of the supposed onlooker, and compares him with another onlooker in Giorgione's painting, The Tempest (Venice: Accademia) (see Ilfuoco, 248; The Flame ofLife, 63; Beckett, Proust, 70). D'Annunzio does not discuss The Tempest in this context, although the painting is mentioned in passing in his essay on Giorgione ("Dell'arte di Giorgio Barbarelli," Prose scelte [Milan: Fratelli Treves, Editori, 1924] 17-22).
SB alludes to the gushing red juice of the crushed pomegranate in Ilfuoco (311; The Flame of Life, 142). Stelio Effrena takes the pomegranate as his personal emblem: suggesting the "idea of things rich and hidden," it is an image of sexuality throughout the novel (llfuoco, 207, 209-211; The Flame ofLife, 13).
In his essay, SB contrasts Proust's "floral obsessions" with those ofD'Annunzio and Keats; SB concludes that "there is no collapse of the will in Proust, as there is for example in Spenser and Keats and Giorgione" (Proust, 68-70).
5 Alan and Belinda Duncan. SB refers to Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), the beheaded Jacobin leader Georges Jacques Danton (1759-1794). and Louis XIV (1628-1715), but his suggestion is unclear.
6 SBreferstoWhoroscopeas"LittleRedRiddensnood. " THOMAS McGREEVY
LE LAVANDOU, V AR
251h August [1930]
E. N. S. [Paris]
My dear Tom
Bronowski wrote me asking for your address. Said he
wanted more poems. I sent it to him. Was that all right? He says he is using three turds from my central lavatory. But alas
42
not the twice round & pointed ones. I started writing this
grace of Black & White. I can't do the fucking thing. I don't
25 August {1930}, McGreevy
1
morning, worked like one inspired for 21⁄2 hours, then tore
everything up and made a present of it to the panier. Since I
have been moistening the Schone Lippen, having first taken
the precaution to provoke salivary hyper-secretion by the
2
know whether to start at the end or the beginning - in a word
should the Proustian arse-hole be considered as entree or
sortie - libre in either case. Anyhow I don't know what to [sic]
or where I am, but I'll write 17000 words before I leave, even
though my observations may have as little variety and none of
3
nice explanation of the temptation to write one[']s nominative
letters across the frieze-fesses. Stimulation of the will. Since
the fesses as fesses as Platonic Idea- have no action on the
Thing in Itself (God help it! ), they will bloody well have a
reaction. I am going now to try his 'Aphorismes sur la Sagesse
de la Vie', that Proust admired so much for its originality and
guarantee of wide reading- transformed. His chapter in Will &
Representation on music is amusing & applies to P. , who cer
tainly read it. [(]It is alluded to incidentally in A. La R. ) A noble
bitch observes to the Duchesse de Guermantes: 'Relisez ce
que S. dit sur la Musique. ' Duchesse snarls & sneers: 'Relisez!
Relisez! <;:a alors, c'est trop fort! ', because she had the snobism
4
Henry says: dear priest says this is fine church. Well I don't like the dam thing, I like a church as a building. When has he
5
43
thesincerityofOrlando'swoodcarvings. Schopenhauerhasa
of ignorance.
[ . . . ] Cards from Nancy & Henry from Albi and Moissac.
been reading the cohesion theory ofArthur, or spittle by spittle. I said in my condemned preamble that the philosopher consid ered the public as a convenient spit[t]oon for his syllogisms, &
25 August {1930}, McGreery
that Mr George Shaw might be considered as called rather than
6
he had the intelligence of an ivory testicle. 7
Well, amuse-toi bien, and write soon, because if Ruddy is
depressed I am suppressed. Much Love
Sam
Meilleures amities au menage.
ALS; I leaf, 4 sides; TCD, 10402/8. Dating: McGreevy left Paris for London before 14 July 1930 and was in London on 14 July 1930 on his way to Dublin (Prentice to Aldington, 15 July 1930, ICSo, Aldington 68/5/12); by 16 August 1930 he was back in Paris (Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 26), and afterwards was expected to visit Aldington in Le Lavandou (Aldington to Derek Patmore, 9 August 1930, indicates his route and that he was expected: JCSo, VFM 9). SB gave the manuscript of Proust to Prentice on 17 September 1930 (Prentice to Aldington, 17 September 1930, ICSo, 68/5/12).
1 SBwrote"<laboratory>lavatory. "
Jacob Bronowski included four poems by Thomas McGreevy in The European Caravan: "Aodh Ruadh 6 Domhnaill,""Homage to Marcel Proust,""Homage to Jack Yeats," and "Golders Green" (493-496). Poems by SB in The European Caravan are:"Hell Crane to
Starling,""Casket of Pralinen for the Daughter of a Dissipated Mandarin,""Text," and "Yoke of Liberty" (475-480); Pilling surmises that"Yoke of Liberty" was not yet selected
(A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 26).
SB uses words from an untitled ode on the public lavatory that he wrote as a student
at Trinity College:
There is an expert there who can
Encircle twice the glittering pan
In flawless symmetry to extend
Neatly pointed at each end.
(Gerald Pakenham Stewart, The Rough and the Smooth:
An Autobiography [Walkanae: Heritage, 1994] 22)
2 "Panier" (the bin). "Schone Lippen" (beautiful lips). Black & White, a brand of
Scotch whisky.
3 "Sortie" (exit):"libre" (free): the reference to a standard shop sign,"entree libre" (in effect, feel free to enter without buying).
Orlando's verses to Rosalind are hung on trees in Shakespeare's As You Like It. 44
chosen. ButIhaven'tgotthehearttojeeranymore. Bronowski rejected Ruddy's poems, who immediately wrote to know who was Mr Buggeroffski or Buggerin-Andoffski, and if
8
4 "Frieze" refers to the decorative architectural element between the architrave and cornice of a building, and "fesses" refers to the horizontal line marking the center of an escutcheon; in the sense suggested by Schopenhauer's example below, SB refers to a need to leave one's initials as a mark of visitation on an architectural feature of a monument.
In Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Schopenhauer distinguishes those who are capable of taking pleasure in the beautiful from those "wholly incapable of the pleasure to be found in pure knowledge" who are "entirely given over to willing. " As an example of the latter's need to "in some way excite their will," he observes that they write their names at places that they visit in order "to affect the place, since it does not affect them" (The World as Will and Representation, I, tr. E. F. J. Payne [Indian Hills, CO: The Falcon's Wing Press, 1958] 314; with appreciation to Michael Maier for his assistance with this allusion).
Schopenhauer "viewed the will as the thing in itself " ("Ding an Sich"), a notion that SB abbreviates in his later Philosophy Notes as "TI! " (David E. Cartwright, Historical Dictionary of Schopenhauer's Philosophy [Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2005] 171, 181; see also reference to TCD, MS 10967/252, by Matthew Feldman, Beckett's Books: A Cultural History ofSamuel Beckett's 'Interwar Notes' [New York: Continuum, 2006] 49). Schopenhauer wrote that "aesthetic satisfaction everywhere rests on the appre hension of a (Platonic) idea" (The World as Will and Representation, II, tr. E. F. J. Payne [Indian Hills, CO: The Falcon's Wing Press, 1958] 414).
While SB may have borrowed a copy from Jean Beaufret, the library of the Ecole Normale Superieure had a copy of Schopenhauer's Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie in Parerga et Paralipomena, tr. J. -A. Cantacuzene (Paris: Felix Akan, 1914).
Schopenhauer's chapter on music is "On the Metaphysics of Music" in The World as Will and Representation, II, 447-457; music is also discussed in I, 256-266.
In Proust's Le Temps retrouve, the Marquise de Cambremer says: "'Relisez ce que Schopenhauer dit de la musique"' ("You must re-read what Schopenhauer says about music"); the remark made by the Duchesse de Guermantes is: "'Relisez est un chef d'oeuvre! Ah! non, �a. par exemple, ii ne faut pas nous la faire'" ("Re-read is pretty rich, I must say. Who does she think she's fooling? "(A la recherche du temps perdu, IV, ed.
Jean-Yves Tadie, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris: Gallimard, 1989] 569; Time Regained in In Search of Lost Time, VI, tr. Andreas Mayor and Terence Kilmartin, rev. D. J. Enright [New York: Modem Library, 1993) 444-445). SB mis-remembers the response by the Duchess de Guermantes as '"Relisez! Relisez! <;:a alors, c'est trap fort! '" ("Re-read! Re-read! Really, that's a bit much! ").
5 Nancy Cunard and Henry Crowder wrote to SB from the Midi-Pyrenees, northeast of Toulouse. Albi is known for the thirteenth-century Cathedral of Ste. Cecile; the mass of the exterior contrasts with the lavish interior decorations by Italian painters and a mural of the LastJudgment painted by unknown Flemish artists (1474-1484).
Moissac is known for its Romanesque abbey church of St. Pierre, with seventy-six well-preserved capitals and four cloister-walks, as well as a depiction of St. John's vision of the Apocalypse on the south portal.
In the first volume of The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer discusses cohesion as a universal force of nature, along with gravitation and impene trability (125, 214, 533). In the second volume, Schopenhauer writes: "For architec ture, considered only asfine art, the Ideas of the lowest grades of nature, that is gravity, rigidity, and cohesion, are the proper theme, but not .
That SB and Peron are "galloping through A. L. P. " suggests that this letter precedes that to Soupault dated 5 July 1930 [for 5 August 1930] when two pages of translation were sent to Soupault.
1 McGreevyhadinvitedSBtojoinhimlaterinthesummerwhenhetraveledtosee Richard Aldington at Aiguebelle near Le Lavandou on the Cote d'Azur, France.
Henri Laugier• (1888-1973) was Professor of Physiology at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (1929-1936) and a physician. A prescription was necessary to purchase caffeine.
2 SBstayedonthroughthesummerattheEcoleNormaleSuperieuretoworkonhis study of Proust and the translation of"Anna Livia Plurabelle" with Peron.
3 Thecircumstanceisnotknown.
4 Henry Morris Sinclair (known as Harry, 1882-71938) was the twin brother of William Sinclair and the proprietor of Harris and Sinclair, Antique Plate, Jewellery and Works ofArt, 47 Nassau Street, Dublin.
The Hotel Bristol, 112 Rue du Faubourg St. -Honore, Paris 8. The opera Louise by Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956) was performed at the Opera Comique on 10 July and 22 July; Louise has four, not five acts, but Act II has two parts.
5 "Racine pleases me more than any other dramatist," wrote Rudmose-Brown in his memoirs: "I have never . . . really cared for what ought to be, or what might be. Mine has been the scientific (or artistic) turn of mind, interested in what is, and why it is . . . I have never been deceived by the cant and slogans and shibboleths ofpoliticians and moralists: but I have never been indignant at the folly and corruption ofthe world"
33
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930), McGreery
(A. J. Leventhal, ed. ,"Extracts from the Unpublished Memoirs of the Late T. B. Rudrnose Brown," Dublin Magazine 31. 1 Uanuary-March 1956\ 32).
6 James Ralph Seabrooke Pinker (fl. 1900-1950), of Messrs James B. Pinker and Sons, London, literary agents for Richard Aldington and Thomas McGreevy.
7 Duncan applied for the position of Assistant in the Ulster Art Gallery and Museum in Belfast in June 1930; by 8 August 1930, of the thirty-six applicants who had been considered, four, including an Irishman living in Paris, were selected for interviews (Nolan, 4 August 1993).
The Irish portrait painter Derrnod O'Brien (1865-1945) was President of the Royal Hibernian Academy (1910-1945) and President of the United Arts Club, Dublin.
8 Jean Beaufi:et. "Deniche" (digs out).
9 When Robert I. Brown arrived in Paris in July 1930, he oversaw delivery of his books to the Ecole Norrnale Superieure. but he did not reside at the ENS until October. His books did not include volumes of Scottish writers Robert Burns (1759-1796), Walter Scott (1771-1832), or Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) (Robert I. Brown, 5 August 1994).
"Und so weiter" (and so forth).
10 McGreevy,whowasnowinIreland,plannedtospendlateAugustandthefirst weeks of September in Aiguebelle.
11 SBmayhavesentWhoroscopetoJoyceinLlandudno,Wales,ortohishomeinParis, 2 Square Robiac. Whoroscope was announced as forthcoming on 30 June 1930 and was probably published between 1 and 8 July 1930 ("Our London Letter," The Irish Independent: 8; SB to McGreevy Thursday [? 17 July 1930], n. 5; Cunard, These Were the Hours, 210).
12 InTheApesofGodbyWyndhamLewis,thecharacterHoraceZagreusspeaksabout satire withJulius Ratner, saying:"To be a true satirist Ratner you must remain upon the surface of existence . . . You must never go underneath it" ([London: Arthur Press, 1930; rpt. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1981\ 451).
Although"gulls"arementionedinTheApesofGod,itisprobablethatSBisresponding to McGreevy's comment on the image of"gulls" in Nancy Cunard's poem, Parallax, a passage that SB had praised in his previous letter to McGreevy [? 17 July 1930].
13 ThebirthdayofSB'sbrotherFrankEdwardBeckett•(1902-1954)was26July. La Beaute sur la terre (1927; Beauty on Earth) was written by Swiss-born novelist Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (1878-1947). The"shell-shocked triangle" probably refers to the following novels ofWorldWar I: Henri Barbusse (1874-1935), Le Feu,joumal d'une escouade (1916; Under Fire); Georges Duhamel (ne Denis Thevenin, 1884-1966), La Vie des martyrs (1917; The New Book of Martyrs); Roland Dorgeles (ne Roland Lecavele, 1885-1973), Les Croix de bois (1919; Wooden Crosses); the first two were awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1917 and 1918 respectively.
14 GermanphilosopherArthurSchopenhauer(1788-1869)discusseshappinessas "mere abolition of a desire and extinction of a pain" in his essay"On the Suffering of the World"; he adds that, if one's fellow man is seen as a"fellow sufferer," it"reminds us of what are the most necessary of all things; tolerance, patience, forbearance and
34
{before 5 August 1930}, McGreevy
charity, which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes" (Essays and Aphorisms,ed. andtr. R. J. HollingdaleL! ondon:Penguin,1970]42,50).
Jean Beaufret and Alfred Peron.
Italian poet GiacomoLeopardi (1798-1837); for SB's student notes onLeopardi: TCD,
MS 10971/9. For further discussion ofLeopardi's influence on SB, see C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski, The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader's Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought (New York: Grove Press, 2004) 316-317.
SB refers to Italian poet and Professor in Classics at the University of Bologna (1860-1904) Giosue Carducci (1835-1907); for SB's student reading notes: TCD, MS 10965 and MS 10965a.
Maurice Barres (1863-1923), French novelist, journalist, politician, fervent and anti-semitic Nationalist, was author of two trilogies of novels, Le Culte du moi (1888-1891; The Cult ofEgo) and Le Roman de l'energie nationale (1897-1902; The Novel of NationalEnergy).
15 "Bon travail & bon sommeil" (work well & sleep well); "tante belle cose" (It. , all good wishes).
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
[before 5 August 1930]
Ecole Normale [Paris]
Dear Tom
I cannot find the phrase you want, but may yet. I thought
I knew where it was, but was wrong as usual. Have you no idea. I
1
I have not put pen to paper on Proust. But I will, & then I hope it will go quickly. I am reading him all again before starting & it tires me a lot. I am supposed to be going on with the Joyce too, alone now that Alfy has gone, God help & save me. I can't do the bloody thing. It's betrayal as well as everything else.
35
thoughtitwasamongstthenegligent,butitwasnot. Whatpoem do you mean? Every second poem of Laforgue is about jeunes ti. Hes & couvents. I will send you my volume of Laforgue. I will look in Corbiere and send it along. 2 Anything I can do I am only too glad to do. But you may be sure I will do it all wrong & badly.
{before 5 August 1930/, McGreevy [. . . ]
I heard from Lucia. I never think of her now. I think they have left Llandudno for Oxford. 3 I saw Bronowski. A talkative
4
Reavey bought a new ribbon for my typewriter & that works very
well now. When are you coming back? Hurry up in the name of
God. Sorry to hear about the Bibesco. Surely he'll pay all the
same? 5 I had a card from Angelo from Piedmont, and was very
glad. I saw your doctor & he gave me some bloody stuffthat isn't
6
them. I am looking forward to pulling the balls off the critical &
poetical Proustian cock. He adored Ruskin & the Comtesse de
Noailles and thought Amie! was a forerunner! I am going to
write a poem about him too, with Charlus's lavender trousers
7
information I can. Have you heard from Aldington? 8 You sent on
an offer of a complimentary photographical seance from one
Miss Vaughan! It'd be better for a man to be dead! When you
come we will drink 2 bottles of Chambertin & half a bottle of
9
Schopenhauer says defunctus is a beautiful word - as long as one does not suicide. 10 He might be right.
Love Sam
ALS; I leaf. 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/4. Dating: Jacob Bronowski was editing the English and Irish sections of The European Caravan for Samuel Putnam; Bronowski was in Paris 31 July to 3 August 1930, and again, overnight, on 16 August as he returned to London (Bronowski to Putnam, 28 July 1930; Bronowski to Putnam, 14 August 1930 [NjP, New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COl 11/1/23]). SB may have met Bronowski
36
shit. I think I like Putnam & Reavey. But possibly not much.
bad,butI'dratherhavecaffeine. Theyneverdowhatyouask
inaGothicpissotiere. Iwillwriteagainto-morrowandgiveall
cochonfine&findacinecochon. Youareunwisetoleaveme your 200. You know I will spend it. I brought my shoes to a shop and they refused to mend them, but I can still wear them on very dry days. Another pair too I had they refused to mend.
[before 5 August 1930), McGreevy
at either of these times, but early August 1930 is more likely. The Joyces were in Llandudno during late June and much ofJuly; Joyce wrote to Valery Larbaud from England on 28 July 1930 and to Stanislaus Joyce from Oxford on 3 August 1930 Uoyce, Letters ofJames Joyce, III, 512, 201). SB's surmise that the Joyces are back in Oxford would confirm a date toward the end ofJuly or early August.
1 The Princes who have been negligent of salvation are found in Canto VII of Dante's Purgatory. McGreevy does not cite Dante in his Thomas Stearns Eliot: A Study, The Dolphin Books (London: Chatto and Windus, 1931); he does quote from Dante in his poem "Fragments" (1931) (Thomas MacGreevy, Collected Poems ofThomas MacGreevy: An Annotated Edition, ed. Susan Schreibman [Dublin: Anna Livia Press; Washington DC: The Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1991] 38, 140-142).
2 Several poems by French poet Jules Laforgue (1860-1887) are quoted in McGreevy's Thomas Stearns Eliot, 30-33: "Figurez-vous un peu" (Derniers vers), "Petition," "Petite priere sans pretentions," and "Le bon apotre" (a section that is also part of"Le Condie Feerique"). McGreevy seeks a poem with allusion to a convent; the untitled twelfth poem ofthe Derniers vers takes as its headnote (in English) a portion of Hamlet's speech to Ophelia, beginning: "Get thee to a nunn'ry" (Shakespeare, Hamlet, in The Riverside Shakespeare: The Complete Works, General and Textual ed. G. Blakemore Evans, assisted by J. J. M. Tobin, 2nd edn. [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997] III. i. 120-129; all subsequent Shakespeare citations are from this text). McGreevy discusses the influence on Eliot of French poet Tristan Corbiere (ne Edouard-Joachim Corbiere, 1845-1875), quoting from Corbiere's poem "Vesuves et Cie," published in Les Amours jaunes (1873) (McGreevy, Thomas Stearns Eliot, 25-26).
3 TheJoycefamilylefttheGrandHotel,Llandudno,fortheRandolphHotel,Oxford, about 1 August 1930 (Danis Rose, The Textual Diaries of]amesJoyce [Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1995] 188).
4 Polish-born mathematician and scientist Jacob Bronowski· (1908-1974) was an Editor ofthe Cambridge University undergraduate journal Experiment (1928-1931), begun by William Empson (1906-1984), William Hare (ne William Francis Hare, Lord Ennismore; from 1931, the 5th Earl ofListowel; 1906-1997), and Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950); in 1929 Hugh Sykes [Davies] (1909-1984) replaced Empson as Editor. George Reavey• (1907-1976), also at Cambridge, published in the journal.
With George Reavey, Maida Castelhun Darnton (1872-1940), and Samuel Putnam, Bronowski was compiling and editing The European Caravan.
5 PrinceAntoineBibesco(1878-1951)wastheRomanianenvoyinLondon,alife long friend ofMarcel Proust, and a dramatist. It is not known what McGreevy had begun to translate for Bibesco, but possibly it was his play Laquelle . . . ? (1930). Although unacknowledged as such, McGreevy was translator ofLe Destin de Lord Thomson of Cardington (Lord Thomson of Cardington, a Memoir and Some Letters [London: Jonathan Cape, 19321) by Princesse Marthe Lucie Bibesco (nee Lahovary, also pseud. Lucile Decaux, 1886-1973), Romanian-born novelist, biographer, and travel writer, a cousin by marriage to Antoine Bibesco.
6 McGreevy'sdoctorwasHenriLaugier.
7 ProustspentseveralyearstranslatingandannotatingtheworksoftheEnglishart
critic and writer John Ruskin (1819-1900): Sesame and Lilies (1865-1869) as Sesame et les
37
{before 5 August 1930], McGreevy
lys (1906) and The Bible of Amiens (1885) as La Bible d'Amiens (1904). Poet and woman of letters, Anna de Brancovan, Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles (1876-1933). Journal /ntime (1883-1884) by Henri-Frederic Amie! (1821-1881), Swiss poet and philosopher, Professor of Aesthetics and Moral Philosophy at the University of Geneva.
In Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu the Baron de Charlus frequents pissotieres (street urinals) for the purpose of soliciting.
8 RichardAldington.
9 ReferencetoacircularfromaphotographerMissKayVaughan(n. d. ),44ADover Street, London Wl.
"Cochon fine" (house brandy); "cine cochon" (blue film).
10 Inhis"DoctrineofSufferingoftheWorld,"Schopenhauerwrites:"Lifeisatask to be worked off; in this sense defunctus is a fine expression" (Studies in Pessimism in Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, tr. E. F. J. Payne. II ! Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974] 300). SB uses "defunctus" as the final word in Proust, The Dolphin Books (! London: Chatto and Windus, 1931] 72; pagination is identical in Proust [New York: Grove Press, 19571).
PHILIPPE SOUPAULT PARIS
5/7/30 [for 5 August 1930]
Ecole Normale Rue d'tnm45 Paris Se
Cher Monsieur Soupault
Voici enfin. Deux copies, dans le cas que Bifur en voudrait
1
une.
Mais je ne voudrais pas publier cela, pas meme un frag
ment, sans l'au[t]orisation de Monsieur Joyce lui-meme, qui
pourrait tres bien trouver cela vraiment trap mal fait et trap
2
Cordialement
s/ Samuel Beckett
TLS; 1 leaf, 1 side; enclosure: TMS with AN; 2 leaves, 2 sides of preliminary translation into French ofJoyce's "Anna Livia Plurabelle"; CtY, James Joyce collection, GEN MSS 112, Series II, 5/102; photocopy OkTIJ, Ellmann collection.
38
eloignedel'original. Plusj'ypenseplusjetrouvetoutcelabien pauvre. Enfin, tel quel, je vous l'envoie.
5 July 1930 {for 5 August 1930}, Soupault
The typescript enclosure ends: "Patain de foudre! En voila du pourprauperisme! " It is possible: (1) that more pages were originally enclosed; (2) that the translation was continued by SB, with or without Peron (an argument that might be made for main taining the date as 5 July 1930); or (3) that the translation was completed by others to whom it was not attributed. Proof pages from Bifur, date stamped 16 October 1930, incorporate the few AN corrections on the original typescript; the proof pages are themselves heavily corrected (GEN MSS 112, Series II, 5/103; http:/fbeinecke/libraiy. yale. edu/dl_crosscollex/default. htm, and Folder 641, Broadside case). This proof indi cates that the translation was done by "M. Perron and S. Beckett," but this is changed to read "AR. Peron. "
A further, though unsigned, typescript reflects the changes made on the Bifur proof (GEN MSS 112, Series 11/5/104; this is ten pages long. although paginated to 9 because two pages are marked "7").
Dating: the editors have dated this letter as 5 August 1930, based on the contextual sequence of undated letters from[? 17 July 1930] to[7 August 1930].
5/7/30 [for 5 August 1930) Ecole Normale Rue d'Ulm45
Paris Se
Dear Monsieur Soupault
Here at last. Two copies, in case Bifur wanted one. But I
would not wish to publish this, not even a fragment, without permission from Mr Joyce himself, who might very well find it
2
1 SB and Alfred Peron prepared the preliminaiy French translation of the "Anna Livia Plurabelle" section of Joyce's Work in Progress for publication in Bifer(TM; 2 Leaves, 2 sides; CtY, James Joyce collection, GEN MSS 112, Series II, 5/102); photocopy, OkTIJ, Ellmann collection).
2 Adrienne Monnier (1892-1955), proprietor of La Maison des Amis des Livres, the Paris bookshop, wrote: "This translation . . . went to the stage of being set in type . . . but it did not go to the stage of being approved for printing, for while Joyce was veiy satisfied with the result when he was consulted, he got it into his head to team seven persons together under his guidance . . . That was to have the
39
1
allreallytoobadlydoneandtoofarfromtheoriginal. Themore I think of it, the more I find it all very poor stuff. Anyhow, such as it is, I send it to you.
Best wishes
Samuel Beckett
5 July 1930 [for 5 August 1930}, Soupault
pleasure of saying my 'Septuagint"' (The Very Rich Hours ofAdrienne Monnier ! New York: Scribner-. 1976] 167).
Revision began with regular weekly sessions in November 1930 and continued into the spring, with Soupault as the "driving force behind the translation" (Paul Leopoldovitch Leon [1893-1942] toRogerVitrac [1899-1953], 30December 1932 inJamesJoyce and Paul Leon, TheJamesJoyce - Paul Leon Papers in The National Library ofIreland: A Catalogue, compiled by Catherine Fahy ! Dublin: National Library of Ireland, 1992] 120).
Philippe Soupault described the process in "A Propos de la traduction d'Anna Livia [forLivie] Plurabelle" (La Nouvelle Revue Franr;aise, 36. 212 ll May 1931] 633-636); although written as "Livia" in the title ofthis essay, throughout the essay, and as the heading for the translation itself, the title is given as "Anna Livie Plurabelle. "The translation is attributed to SamuelBeckett, Alfred Perron (for Peron), IvanGoll,Eugene (forEugene)
Jolas, Paul L. Leon, Adrienne Monnier, and Philippe Soupault, in collaboration with the author (La Nouvelle Revue Fral'l{aise, 36. 212 ll May 1931] 637-646). For more detail about the translation process: "Traduttore . . . Traditore? " in Maria Jolas, ed. , A James Joyce Yearbook (Paris: Transition Press, 1949) 171-178; this reprints Soupault's memoir from his Souvenirs deJamesJoyce (Algiers:Editions Fontaine, 1943), andEugeneJolas's account of the translation process from the manuscript of his then unpublished autobiogra phy, Man from Babel, ed. Andreas Kramer and Rainer Rumod, Henry McBride Series in Modernism and Modernity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
THOMAS McGREEVY T ARBERT, CO. KERRY
7/7/30 [for 7 August 1930]
E. N. S. [Paris]
DearTom
Here is the Corbiere and the baronial nausea. You see I
exaggerated as usual. Vinegar not cowpiss. I hope you will not be too disappointed. Alas I cannot find the words of Dante, and I have been all through it. I am sony but it is hopeless when I don't know where to look. I am sending you my copy of Laforgue. 1
The Proust is crawling along though I have not started to write anything. 17000 words is the hell of a lot, and I can't see myself doing so much. 2 Alfy is gone. I am going to write to him now that I cannot go on with the translation alone. I can't do it. And then to that bastard Soupault that I will sign no contract.
40
7 July 1930 [for 7 August 1930}, McGreevy
I sent him two copies of what we had already done, one for Joyce
and one for Bifur if Joyce is not too disgusted by the chasm of
feeling and technique between his hieroglyphics and our bastard
French. 3 But I will not go on alone. It can't be done, and I am tired
enough and have enough to do without that. I was reading
d'Annunzio on Giorgione again and I think it is all balls and
mean nasty balls. I was thinking of Keats and Giorg[i]one's two
young men - the Concert and the Tempest - for a discussion of
Proust's floral obsessions. D'A. seems to think that they are
merely pausing between fucks. Horrible. He has a dirty juicy
squelchy mind, bleeding and bursting, like his celebrated pome
granates. 4 My head was a torrent of ideas and phrases last night or
rather this morning in bed, but it did me no good as I could
neither go to sleep nor get up and put them down. My shoe
exploded this afternoon in the Boul Mich so I had to go in and
buy a pair. I left them in the shop and felt relieved when I got
away without them. Saw A. and B. last night. Napoleon Danton
and Louis quatorze[']s red heels! 5 Dining with Nancy tomorrow.
6
TLS; I leaf, 2 sides; TCD, MS 10402/7. Dating: Nancy Cunard was in Paris through the middle ofAugust; she wrote to Louise Morgan on 13 August 1930: "These are the last days here thank God. Then off [ . . . ] into the car and so down Pyreneenwards [ . . . [ If Beckett goes to London on his way to Dublin I'll make so bold as to send him you. He's a grand person" (CtY, Beinecke, GEN MSS 80, series v, 36/361).
1 SB sent his copy of Corbiere's Les Amours jaunes and of the poems of Laforgue. Although it is not known which edition ofLaforgue he sent to McGreevy, or whether McGreevy returned the book, according to James KnowIson SB owned the 1903 edition ofLaforgue's Poesies (Paris: Mercure de France) at the time ofhis death.
2 SB'sessayturnedouttobeaboutthesamelengthasotherbooksintheChattoand Windus Dolphin Books series.
3 NeitherSB'slettertoPeron,norafurtherlettertoSoupaulthasbeenfound.
41
She says Little Red Riddensnood is selling, but I don't believe her. God bless, hurry up back.
sf Sam
7 July 1930 [for 7 August 1930), McGreevy
4 llfuoco (1900) by the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863-1938) includes a discussion ofthe three figures in The Concert (Palazzo Pitti, Florence), then attributed to Italian painter Giorgione (ne Zorzi da Castelfranco, also known as Zorzon, c. 1477-1510). but now attributed to Titian (ne Tiziano Vecellio, c. 1485-1576). D'Annunzio's character Stelio Effrena lectures on the painting, describing the gaze exchanged between the musician at the harpsichord and the older man on the right, who gently touches his shoulder; the other figure in the painting, a man on the left in a plumed hat, is described by D'Annunzio as an apparently detached onlooker. Stelio says that "Giorgione seems to have created [him] under the influence ofa ray reflected from the stupendous Hellenic myth whence the ideal form ofHermaphrodite arose" (Il
fuoco: I romanzi del Melagrano in Prose di romanzi, II, ed. Ezio Raimondi, Annamaria Andreoli, and Niva Lorenzini [Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. 1989] 247; The Flame of Life: The Romances of the Pomegranate, tr. Kassandra Vivaria (Boston: L. C. Page and Company, 1900] 62-63). In Proust, SB quotes a passage from llfuoco that captures the sensuous nature of the supposed onlooker, and compares him with another onlooker in Giorgione's painting, The Tempest (Venice: Accademia) (see Ilfuoco, 248; The Flame ofLife, 63; Beckett, Proust, 70). D'Annunzio does not discuss The Tempest in this context, although the painting is mentioned in passing in his essay on Giorgione ("Dell'arte di Giorgio Barbarelli," Prose scelte [Milan: Fratelli Treves, Editori, 1924] 17-22).
SB alludes to the gushing red juice of the crushed pomegranate in Ilfuoco (311; The Flame of Life, 142). Stelio Effrena takes the pomegranate as his personal emblem: suggesting the "idea of things rich and hidden," it is an image of sexuality throughout the novel (llfuoco, 207, 209-211; The Flame ofLife, 13).
In his essay, SB contrasts Proust's "floral obsessions" with those ofD'Annunzio and Keats; SB concludes that "there is no collapse of the will in Proust, as there is for example in Spenser and Keats and Giorgione" (Proust, 68-70).
5 Alan and Belinda Duncan. SB refers to Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), the beheaded Jacobin leader Georges Jacques Danton (1759-1794). and Louis XIV (1628-1715), but his suggestion is unclear.
6 SBreferstoWhoroscopeas"LittleRedRiddensnood. " THOMAS McGREEVY
LE LAVANDOU, V AR
251h August [1930]
E. N. S. [Paris]
My dear Tom
Bronowski wrote me asking for your address. Said he
wanted more poems. I sent it to him. Was that all right? He says he is using three turds from my central lavatory. But alas
42
not the twice round & pointed ones. I started writing this
grace of Black & White. I can't do the fucking thing. I don't
25 August {1930}, McGreevy
1
morning, worked like one inspired for 21⁄2 hours, then tore
everything up and made a present of it to the panier. Since I
have been moistening the Schone Lippen, having first taken
the precaution to provoke salivary hyper-secretion by the
2
know whether to start at the end or the beginning - in a word
should the Proustian arse-hole be considered as entree or
sortie - libre in either case. Anyhow I don't know what to [sic]
or where I am, but I'll write 17000 words before I leave, even
though my observations may have as little variety and none of
3
nice explanation of the temptation to write one[']s nominative
letters across the frieze-fesses. Stimulation of the will. Since
the fesses as fesses as Platonic Idea- have no action on the
Thing in Itself (God help it! ), they will bloody well have a
reaction. I am going now to try his 'Aphorismes sur la Sagesse
de la Vie', that Proust admired so much for its originality and
guarantee of wide reading- transformed. His chapter in Will &
Representation on music is amusing & applies to P. , who cer
tainly read it. [(]It is alluded to incidentally in A. La R. ) A noble
bitch observes to the Duchesse de Guermantes: 'Relisez ce
que S. dit sur la Musique. ' Duchesse snarls & sneers: 'Relisez!
Relisez! <;:a alors, c'est trop fort! ', because she had the snobism
4
Henry says: dear priest says this is fine church. Well I don't like the dam thing, I like a church as a building. When has he
5
43
thesincerityofOrlando'swoodcarvings. Schopenhauerhasa
of ignorance.
[ . . . ] Cards from Nancy & Henry from Albi and Moissac.
been reading the cohesion theory ofArthur, or spittle by spittle. I said in my condemned preamble that the philosopher consid ered the public as a convenient spit[t]oon for his syllogisms, &
25 August {1930}, McGreery
that Mr George Shaw might be considered as called rather than
6
he had the intelligence of an ivory testicle. 7
Well, amuse-toi bien, and write soon, because if Ruddy is
depressed I am suppressed. Much Love
Sam
Meilleures amities au menage.
ALS; I leaf, 4 sides; TCD, 10402/8. Dating: McGreevy left Paris for London before 14 July 1930 and was in London on 14 July 1930 on his way to Dublin (Prentice to Aldington, 15 July 1930, ICSo, Aldington 68/5/12); by 16 August 1930 he was back in Paris (Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 26), and afterwards was expected to visit Aldington in Le Lavandou (Aldington to Derek Patmore, 9 August 1930, indicates his route and that he was expected: JCSo, VFM 9). SB gave the manuscript of Proust to Prentice on 17 September 1930 (Prentice to Aldington, 17 September 1930, ICSo, 68/5/12).
1 SBwrote"<laboratory>lavatory. "
Jacob Bronowski included four poems by Thomas McGreevy in The European Caravan: "Aodh Ruadh 6 Domhnaill,""Homage to Marcel Proust,""Homage to Jack Yeats," and "Golders Green" (493-496). Poems by SB in The European Caravan are:"Hell Crane to
Starling,""Casket of Pralinen for the Daughter of a Dissipated Mandarin,""Text," and "Yoke of Liberty" (475-480); Pilling surmises that"Yoke of Liberty" was not yet selected
(A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 26).
SB uses words from an untitled ode on the public lavatory that he wrote as a student
at Trinity College:
There is an expert there who can
Encircle twice the glittering pan
In flawless symmetry to extend
Neatly pointed at each end.
(Gerald Pakenham Stewart, The Rough and the Smooth:
An Autobiography [Walkanae: Heritage, 1994] 22)
2 "Panier" (the bin). "Schone Lippen" (beautiful lips). Black & White, a brand of
Scotch whisky.
3 "Sortie" (exit):"libre" (free): the reference to a standard shop sign,"entree libre" (in effect, feel free to enter without buying).
Orlando's verses to Rosalind are hung on trees in Shakespeare's As You Like It. 44
chosen. ButIhaven'tgotthehearttojeeranymore. Bronowski rejected Ruddy's poems, who immediately wrote to know who was Mr Buggeroffski or Buggerin-Andoffski, and if
8
4 "Frieze" refers to the decorative architectural element between the architrave and cornice of a building, and "fesses" refers to the horizontal line marking the center of an escutcheon; in the sense suggested by Schopenhauer's example below, SB refers to a need to leave one's initials as a mark of visitation on an architectural feature of a monument.
In Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Schopenhauer distinguishes those who are capable of taking pleasure in the beautiful from those "wholly incapable of the pleasure to be found in pure knowledge" who are "entirely given over to willing. " As an example of the latter's need to "in some way excite their will," he observes that they write their names at places that they visit in order "to affect the place, since it does not affect them" (The World as Will and Representation, I, tr. E. F. J. Payne [Indian Hills, CO: The Falcon's Wing Press, 1958] 314; with appreciation to Michael Maier for his assistance with this allusion).
Schopenhauer "viewed the will as the thing in itself " ("Ding an Sich"), a notion that SB abbreviates in his later Philosophy Notes as "TI! " (David E. Cartwright, Historical Dictionary of Schopenhauer's Philosophy [Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2005] 171, 181; see also reference to TCD, MS 10967/252, by Matthew Feldman, Beckett's Books: A Cultural History ofSamuel Beckett's 'Interwar Notes' [New York: Continuum, 2006] 49). Schopenhauer wrote that "aesthetic satisfaction everywhere rests on the appre hension of a (Platonic) idea" (The World as Will and Representation, II, tr. E. F. J. Payne [Indian Hills, CO: The Falcon's Wing Press, 1958] 414).
While SB may have borrowed a copy from Jean Beaufret, the library of the Ecole Normale Superieure had a copy of Schopenhauer's Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie in Parerga et Paralipomena, tr. J. -A. Cantacuzene (Paris: Felix Akan, 1914).
Schopenhauer's chapter on music is "On the Metaphysics of Music" in The World as Will and Representation, II, 447-457; music is also discussed in I, 256-266.
In Proust's Le Temps retrouve, the Marquise de Cambremer says: "'Relisez ce que Schopenhauer dit de la musique"' ("You must re-read what Schopenhauer says about music"); the remark made by the Duchesse de Guermantes is: "'Relisez est un chef d'oeuvre! Ah! non, �a. par exemple, ii ne faut pas nous la faire'" ("Re-read is pretty rich, I must say. Who does she think she's fooling? "(A la recherche du temps perdu, IV, ed.
Jean-Yves Tadie, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris: Gallimard, 1989] 569; Time Regained in In Search of Lost Time, VI, tr. Andreas Mayor and Terence Kilmartin, rev. D. J. Enright [New York: Modem Library, 1993) 444-445). SB mis-remembers the response by the Duchess de Guermantes as '"Relisez! Relisez! <;:a alors, c'est trap fort! '" ("Re-read! Re-read! Really, that's a bit much! ").
5 Nancy Cunard and Henry Crowder wrote to SB from the Midi-Pyrenees, northeast of Toulouse. Albi is known for the thirteenth-century Cathedral of Ste. Cecile; the mass of the exterior contrasts with the lavish interior decorations by Italian painters and a mural of the LastJudgment painted by unknown Flemish artists (1474-1484).
Moissac is known for its Romanesque abbey church of St. Pierre, with seventy-six well-preserved capitals and four cloister-walks, as well as a depiction of St. John's vision of the Apocalypse on the south portal.
In the first volume of The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer discusses cohesion as a universal force of nature, along with gravitation and impene trability (125, 214, 533). In the second volume, Schopenhauer writes: "For architec ture, considered only asfine art, the Ideas of the lowest grades of nature, that is gravity, rigidity, and cohesion, are the proper theme, but not .
